Saturday, June 28, 2008

how they couldstand in the wistful daylight,their heartbreaking young facesoverflowing with courage and strength,their eyes filled with longingfor glorious annihilation,and tie the sacred scarfaround their heads,climb intothe flying funeral urnsand hurl themselvesat the other brave young menin the hopes of reversingthe foregone verdict.If there really were a hellits deepest and cruelest recesseswould be filled with all thosewho have convincedthe young menof a thousand erasthat their greatest taskwas not to grow intohonorable old age,but rather that thezenith of nobilitywas for them to throw theirshredded, severed gutsinto the endless riverof squandered humantomorrowsfor the sake of battlesthat no amount ofpriceless young livescould ever beworth.

in the fading daylightof the Burnt Over District,weeping the most disbelievingtears ever wrung from humaneyes, while the laughingmockery of their neighborsstill burned in their ears."What, not gone up yet? Wife didn't leaveyou here to burn, did she?"Brother William wept more bitterlythan all the rest.He had countedthe twenty-three hundred weeksso carefully; how could He not have come with a shoutand ushered His flockto Eternal Life?Many shook their headsat the spectacle, and concludedthat some people just didn'tknow how to read the signs andScriptures accurately.Didn't they know the End of Dayswouldn't be arriving for at leastfive more years?

in the dusty history textand sometimes he wantsto jump into themand see for himself thecrimson aftermath ofAntietam, even at the riskof destroying the last remnantsof his childish romancewith that distant carnage.He wants torub shoulders with the Hasidimon the sidewalksof 1900 New York,to smell the stenchof the horse-infested streets,and to know that these peoplewere real, that the dayin which they livedwas as physical and as warm-bloodedas his is.He wants to feel the breezecoming off of San Francisco Bayon that day in 1890 when the townwas still raw and pulsingwith the energy of naked money lustand thick-muscled power.It's all right there,if only he could plunge into themand look around for a while.The only condition he asks for is forthe portal to stay open long enoughfor him to grab the edge of his deskand pull himself back intothe 3-D cinemaof right now;he wants only to be a visitor,not the guy standingsecond from the leftfor someone elseto wonder about.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

and met the shivering testof many winters.Now, he had crossed overto the New Land, andmany heavy taskshad to be borne.His woman understood whyshe could not come intothe Cave of Dreams,and stood in brave sorrowat its mouth.His kinsmen bore him inand carefully arranged hisno longer stiffened bodyin its intimate crouch.The shaman ordered thetraveling brother's headpointed toward the north,and around the Travelerwas arrayed a tender ringof magical flowers,to delight him and guide himsafely to the other realm.A spear was placed in his hands,the men offered him good wishesand they solemnly ordered himnot to kill all the deerbefore they could join him.

Saturday, June 21, 2008

the mythology of fate,the predetermined scriptheld in the hands of thoseto whom the gods themselvesbow in helplessness.But I am glad nonethelessthat the churning Universecreated us in its blindferment,and allowed me the privilegeof meeting the woman in thequilted coat on that drearyFebruary night,an event that changedthe biography of oneindividual from the story ofwithered pipe dreamsand dark loathing toone where the lightof fragile hope was againreborn, and a chance atredemptionmiraculously resurrected.

to think that you knowwhen in fact it willalways be a mystery novelwith chapters missingand characters appearingwith deus ex machinaimprobability.The best you can hope foris to sign the armisticeand to find your placein the arms of thosewho have forgiven yourtrespassesas you have forgiventheirs.

like invisible spider silk,encompassing my beingwith more threads thanI can possibly knowor even hope to count.They were spun in the separation of gravityfrom the rest of the birth process.They were spun in the RNA world.They were spun by the spike-furredlittle animal that retreated, terrified,into the trees to escape thecarnivorous wrath of the saurians.They were spun by the hungry womanusing her lousy spine to stand up inthe tall grass.They were spun by the tribes makingepic journeys throughlandscapes of sun-blasted crueltyand ice-stormedmercilessness.They were spun bydesperate men and womencasting awayall they had knownand running to embraceglittering promises.And they are now spun bymultitudes of strangersfrom every landscapeever knownand every time ever experienced,and I spin my own web for them,(although neither of us knows it),and they are just as entangled in myblind strugglesas I am in theirs.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

they flood mewith great, windshield-paralyzingsheets of words and blinding wallsof imagery,so I push down the corridorand the flood diminishes somewhatbut still roars at me at near-galestrength.So I pushfarther and the torrent seems tosettle down some more,and I need my searchlightas I head into thedarker reaches.In those nether regions thevoices dwindle to a few,(though sometimes astonishingchoruses sing at me in brieferuptions)and I have to take their wordfor what I'm seeing.And farther back there are onlyshredded paragraphs,then disembodied sentences,then words floating likewreckage,and then all is silencewith only bones andshattered potterylying about intauntingdisarray.

to both of themspeaking to methrough the veilof the darkening years,their words pinning mehelplessly to the ground.He had witnessed his familytaken in the selection,and laterrained down upon himin gray ash.And the One Whose NameMust Never Be Spoken had ceasedto exist at that moment.She stood at the gates of Birkenauwith tears of gratitude in herjoyous eyes, feeling anoverwhelming closenessto Him, and knowing for thefirst time how the Lawgiverhad felt seeing that whichwas beyond sight.And I realizedin hearing themthat there were argumentsin which I had no rightunder heaven and earthto say anything.

descended from the tongueof Cicero and Ovid,and he stepped ashoreon the sweltering beach,clad in a sweat-drencheddark cassock, wearinghis savior's tortured bodyaround his neck, andmarveling at the alien landscape'sferocious greenery.The rough men were bringingthe tools of conquest off theships, anda group of lucklessdonkeys had been landedto carry theshining excrement of the pillageto come.The man the otherscalled Father asked if he couldborrow one of the animalsto explore."Bring it back alive" was the blunt reply,and together the tired servantand his temporary master set out.Clutching his magic beads andmurmuring appealsto the ominous heavens,the holy man and his mindlesscompanion pushed intothe tangles of foliage formore than half an hour.With a start, they came upona group of men as naked asAdam before the Fall, and fora moment that spanned centuries,they stared at each other withfrozen amazement.Seeing the living embodimentof their legends in front of them,the reddish bronze men fell tothe earth prostrate, and chantedtheir humble welcome."God has delivered me", the rider saidin a barely audible rapture, and heknew that the New Jerusalemcould not be far.And holding his head high,with the Divine Countenance itselfreflected on his face,he rode the starved little donkeytoward those whom he wouldbaptize into the Kingdom,and the bare-skinned welcomersleading themquivered with anticipationat introducing the centaur-godto their soon to be enlightenedbrothers and sisters.

with comfortable dilemmasor too many options.They have only one choice--to get up and crush thevertebrae of their backsinto dust to have enoughto swallow each nightso that they can rise,and ignore the complaintsflooding in from every partof their pack animal bodies,and repeat the processuntil,when they are no longer ableto bend wizened hands to thetask,they are thrown onto the pyreto be mourned and wept overin the interval betweenshifts.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

and linkedand createda fine-meshednet, day after day,until, finally,like an old television setfading into view,from itemergedthe first,primordial image,as remote now asthe caves at Lascaux.It is an anxious womanwith a soothing voice,reassuring the sicklittle boyin thestrange settingof the hospital room.Is he summoning itfrom the recessesof soft-edged time,or is it merely a legendrecalled from an earlyhearing around thecampfire?

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

into the bluenessand her voice is heardby no one,only the scurrying,indifferentchameleons.Her song is likenone other everheardor imagined,an impossibleglorythat she will neversing again,nor even be ableto remember.Its reality will die outwith the last note,to remainforever unknown,but part of theuniverse'sheritagenonetheless.

Monday, June 9, 2008

Nodding his assent, thedour assistant added itscrupulously."The soil can't be tooheavy with clay" the firstone said, superfluously,as No. 2 was alreadyselecting the dirtwith rigorous care."Add the water slowly",was the next command.The able partner poured itartfully."The trace ingredients willbe a problem.""I'm on it," the otherreplied, never taking his eyesoff the carefully measuredspoons as he added theiridiosyncrasies.After all had been done,they hit the button andthe glutinous mass wasfolded and stirredvigorously.The first one said, withunsettling gravity,"Now, this is tricky.You've got to pour it in tothe mold juuuust right."Beads of sweat dottedthe assistant's forehead ashe carried out the delicateprocess with infinitecare.Relieved that the hard partwas over, they slipped the forminto the waiting ovento let the heat transform itovernight.In the morning, the tworeturned and carefullyfreed the figure fromits temporary encasement.Once the last of the moldhad fallen to the ground,No. 2 stood in inexplicablerapture, unable totear his eyes away.Cursing himself, No. 1said, "I meant to tell you--don't fall in love with her.""Too late," No. 2 said,as the Tigris and Euphratescoursed down his face.

Saturday, June 7, 2008

and stretched it,puzzling overwhich shape looked best,and then tossed it to the boy,who let it sitfor the longest timeuntil, fully grown,he did a body slamright into the center of it.The little girl,picking it up gingerly,thought that washow it was supposed to lookuntil she read a fairy talethat showed her what a happy endingshe could make out of it.She thereupon set outon a multi-decade questto reshape it in startlingnew ways.Upon seeing the outcome,the people of the townall agreed that this washow it must have lookedsince time immemorial,until, many years later,some started to wonderwhy it had to be thereat all.They broke pieces of it offand rolled them intoamusing little cubes and triangles.Eventually,the restless motorcycle gangstole most of it,(ignoring the littlecubes and triangles),and used itto build their new headquarters.Age killed the last of them off,and the really bright kidwho was sorting through theirtattered clubhouse's remainspounded it into awonderful pillar, covered withbeautifully detailed inscriptions,all describing its eternaland everlastingnature.

Friday, June 6, 2008

objects is deceptive,a byproduct ofthe rubbery-like blobthey slosh around in.They are, in fact,cloud beings,shape shiftingand billowingin thrall to unseencrosswinds,little universes where tinyparticlesjump and race likechildren on the first dayof summer vacation.Within them is the entiretwisted story,buried in a quivering cap ofcauliflower-shaped gelatin.They are walking, breathingmetaphor factories,and the sum totalof everythingthat they areis merelya Rube Goldberg device,only with a more seriouspunchline.

casually crushing walnutsbetween his bicepsand his forearmswhen he heard thealarm.With no thoughtof his own safetyhe crashedthrough the plate glasswindow,spraying the roomwith savagebursts from hispulsating dual Mac-10s.As the last reverberationsdied away he swiveledhis powerful neck towardthe kitchen, strodeover to the stove,and sent the timerto HELL where it belonged.

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

where the Prophet ascended.I see the depths of the human willto believe.They bow in prayerful rhythmbefore the last remains of theTemple.I see a building ruined byVespasian's thugs.They come seeking the placewhere He pointed to theMount of Olives;I look for his shadowbut see only tourists.

Monday, June 2, 2008

holding it to his midsectionas ifit were a rabid animalready to gouge outhis insideswere he to lose controlof it.No one on the outsideknowshow fantastically lethalit actually is,but the daily blood it drawsconvinced hima long time ago.He will grip it right to thelast moment of hissad little melodrama;then, like a decapitatedmachine gunnerat Verdun,he will grip it evenharder.